get pregnant to lose the pregnancy,” says Hawkins. “Herds with chronic liver fl uke
infection could have problems with reproduction. I’ve seen this in herds along the Gulf Coast, such as in south Louisiana and south- east Texas. “Some producers there feel that a
75 percent conception rate is the best they can do. I always attributed this to things like poor management, heat stress, poor nutrition, etc., but it may be because, even though they are treating for liver fl ukes, they aren’t getting enough control to alleviate this effect. This has not been con- fi rmed with studies in beef cows; it was just confi rmed in dairy heifers. I believe it probably happens in adult cows, to a lesser extent,” he says.
Flukes affect bull fertility There is also data from Texas
A&M University showing fl uke in- fection was the only thing that sta- tistically correlated with a bull fail- ing his breeding soundness exam. “This study was done with sev-
eral thousand bulls over 9 years of breeding soundness exams,” says Hawkins. The results indicated that if bulls failed their exam and had a positive test for fl ukes and were treated for fl ukes, they would almost always have a successful breeding soundness exam 6 weeks later. This was especially important in young bulls.”
OSU studies fl ukes’ effect on feedlot cattle In a feedlot situation, fl ukes can
be a problem. A number of studies show that gain and feed conversion are affected. “Gain is primarily af- fected by number of fl ukes — the more fl ukes, the more impact. But
the effect on feed conversion is prob- ably the most important, because of the price of feed. If it costs you more to fi nish that animal than normal, you lose money,” says Hawkins. “The best study I saw on this was
done by Oklahoma State University, monitoring individual animal feed intake and gain on a group of steers. When they went to slaughter, each liver was checked for fl ukes. Then the researchers went back to see what each animal did on average daily gain and feed intake. They found that fl ukes signifi cantly im- pacted gain and feed conversion,” he says. “It definitely pays to control
fl ukes, but in the feedlot it’s diffi - cult to diagnose fl uke infection and relatively expensive. The fl uke eggs are hard to fi nd. You have to use a special technique. Even if you fi nd them, this doesn’t indicate whether
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April 2014 The Cattleman 75
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